


Mystery Man

by TheWitchBoy



Series: Secret ID Reveals [7]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Justice League - All Media Types, Nightwing (Comics), Teen Titans - All Media Types, The Flash - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Awkwardness, Background Poly, Barry Is a good uncle, Batfamily Dynamics (DCU), Batfamily Meets Justice League, Bisexual Disaster Wally West, Bisexual Hal Jordan, Bisexual Wally West, Dating, Dick Grayson Being a Little Shit, Dick Grayson is a Troll, Family Shenanigans, Fluff and Humor, Hal Jordan Swears, Hot Mess Dick Grayson, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I definitely edited it instead of sleeping, I think?, Iris West Knows All, It's Getting Gay, Jason Todd Being a Little Shit, Jason Todd Shows His Love in Unnecessarily Violent Ways, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Meet-Cute, Protective Batfamily (DCU), Protective Jason Todd, Protective Tim Drake, Slash, Sweet Hal Jordan, Tim Drake Being a Little Shit, Wally West Being an Idiot, Wally West is a Hot Mess, and it rubbed off on Wally oops, but in a cute way, except it's just barry this time, jokes in possible poor taste, no beta we die like jason
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-13 05:20:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29396835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWitchBoy/pseuds/TheWitchBoy
Summary: “Uncle Barry,” Wally said in a tight voice. His eyes betrayed his concern, in more ways than one, when they flicked over to the other occupant of his bed. The only thing visible of him was a halo of long dark hair and the top of his head. If Wally hadn’t looked at him, Barry might very well have missed it entirely, which would have given Wally time to come up with what he was going to say.If. “If” was the operative word.
Relationships: Barry Allen/Hal Jordan, Barry Allen/Hal Jordan/Iris West, Barry Allen/Iris West, Dick Grayson/Wally West, Dick Grayson/Wally West (Pre-Relationship)
Series: Secret ID Reveals [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2146941
Comments: 144
Kudos: 470





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tagging is a frustrating sport, man. For some of the fics I've written, recently, it's been easy. All "I know exactly what tags I need!" But not this time. 
> 
> Anyway. Whatever. I managed. XD
> 
> I kept telling myself I was going to add more to this. I liked it enough that I wanted to, ya know? But it's been a week and, upon a reread, I realized that, really, I didn't have a plan of where to go and it was good enough. So I deleted a few lines of dialogue and, viola, that's where it ends, now.
> 
> I had a bunch of fun with Wally's dialogue and reactions.

Wally had been so wiped the day before that he hadn't figured out what he was going to say about… everything.

He’d been focused on just getting the injured man to safety. Getting those injuries cared for. He hadn’t thought much beyond those two goals. He hadn't even thought to wonder how it would look, come morning, when there was some stranger, in Wally's own pajamas, also in Wally's bed. Asleep next to Wally.

Some days were just like that. No good deed going unpunished, or something like that.

But hey,  a t least Wally was living with his uncle and not his dad. That would have been so, so,  _ so _ __ much worse. If Rudy was anything, he was... yeah. Not someone you wanted to find you in bed with a guy, even if the entire situation was a misunderstanding. Innocent.

God, though. It had been so late when Wally had found the man . He’d been running on fumes.

F or the whole day, the emergencies kept  piling up, courtesy of the fallout of the latest world domination scheme. The whole day was a mess of running (ha!) from one thing to another, saving one person after another, rounding up one criminal after another.  Hero stuff. With no break.

When Wally had had time for a breath – when it finally looked as though things might be wrapping up on there world-saving front  – he'd found the obviously injured vigilante , half-hidden and unconscious. And then he'd seen the creeps  apparently looking for that particular vigilante. Unless there was another  badly injured vigilante who would make an easy target.

Not like it mattered. Wally knew the type. Troublemakers and wannabe villains. If they found a mask, they’d probably act on it, try to benefit from the misfortune and weakness, exploit it. And it wouldn’t be pretty.

Wally hadn’t done much thinking from there.  He'd scooped up the unconscious form, suspiciously located near a Zeta access point on the far side of Keystone , and he’d… run. His conscious mind wasn’t necessarily the one making decisions, but he knew he could trust his instincts.

His feet took him home.

Barry and Iris (and Hal) hadn't been back yet, and Wally had been so tired that, as soon as he'd dealt with the  man’s  injuries and changed  him out of his uniform (and hid said uniform away because… duh), he crawled into bed, right next to the other man, the stranger, and fell asleep.

Dead asleep.

It should have occurred to Wally that there would be problems, come morning. That the spontaneous arrangement would look questionable at best. Sure, Wally was a good kid, but bringing a stranger into the house? That had to be bad enough. Not settling the stranger in the guest room? Sleeping in the same bed with some guy he didn’t know at all? Yeah. Yikes.

Wally hadn’t even set his alarm or anything. He was just that out of it by the time he’d finished dealing with the stranger’s injuries and his own injuries. He just crawled into bed, next to the shallowly breathing stranger, drew his blankets up over his head, and fell asleep.

So.

Yeah.

Wally woke late the next morning, warm and content, with the sun falling across his face. He had his arm around something solid and his nose buried in something soft and... smoky? Wally wrinkled his nose and curled closer. Awareness trickled in from there.

He shot up, removing himself from the warmth as if it had suddenly burnt him.

Had he seriously—?

Wow.

He’d  _ cuddled  _ up to a stranger, curling around his back.  _ Wow _ . He’d had his nose in the stranger’s hair, even. Was that smoky scent part of whatever had happened to him? Wally couldn’t even remember any fires in Central or Keystone, recently. Or explosions. Where would he have acquired that singed, campfire scent? No, never mind! How had Wally ended up curled up behind him like that? Yikes!

This guy was a stranger! What if he’d woken up while Wally was still wrapped around him? Oh god, how embarrassing would that have been, even?

_ Yikes _ .

What if he’d woken up and turned out to be a rogues’ gallery member, not a vigilante? Wally didn’t know the guy from Adam, after all. And he’d just... what? Brought him home? Tended to him? Tucked him in? Hid his gear and dressed him in  pjs ? Geez. Wally could have been, like,  _ murdered  _ in his sleep.

Wally rubbed his hands over his face, then threw back his side of the blankets to throw his legs over the side of the bed.

He leaned over to drop his head back into his hands. He hadn’t thought about it at all. He’d just... acted.

And now there was a stranger in his home.  _ In his bed _ . Christ.

The door creaked open. “Wally—?”

Wally sucked in a breath and turned, wide-eyed, to the door. To Barry.

Between them slept the stranger, curled up in Wally’s blankets like he belonged there.

“Uncle Barry,” Wally said in a tight voice. His eyes betrayed his concern, in more ways than one, when they flicked over to the other occupant of his bed. The only thing visible of him was a halo of long dark hair and the top of his head. If Wally hadn’t looked at him, Barry might very well have missed it entirely, which would have given Wally time to come up with what he was going to say.

If. “If” was the operative word.

Barry’s eyes followed the path of Wally’s gaze, then jerked back. “ _ Wally _ ,” he said. His eyes were wide and his eyebrows crept up his forehead. He looked almost... hurt. Maybe even a bit betrayed. “Wally, what—?”

“ Shh ,” Wally waved his arms at Barry and jumped to his feet. He took a moment to flip the covers back into place, behind him. The motion, however, disturbed the sleeping man. He turned over, the blankets  falling back a bit. Not enough to show any physical features of the man, beyond his hair and a bit of pale skin. “I can explain,” Wally hissed, creeping around the foot of his bed.

“What do you mean ‘you can explain’?” Barry motioned to the bed. Now he just looked a bit panicked. “Oh, god. Please tell me you were safe, at least.”

“What?  _ No _ ! I mean yes? No, but... oh my god,” Wally felt the horror shape his expression and pull his shoulders up around his ears. “Oh my god,” he repeated, hissing. He stepped forward, quickly, and pushed Barry back, out of the room.

“What do you mean no?” Barry looked panicked. “Wally, you could really wreck the girl’s life if you—”

“Oh my god, shut up,” Wally squeaked. He stepped out into the hall and closed the door behind him, quietly. “I didn’t sleep with—I mean. I did, but not. Not like that! Oh my god. I don’t mean I didn’t use protection or something! I mean, I didn’t, but that’s because I didn’t need it. I mean!”

“ _ Wally _ .”

“I mean! I didn’t! I didn’t need to, because I didn’t—didn’t have. Uh. I didn’t. Do. Anything. With.” Wally felt all the blood rushing to his face. He had to be at least as red as his hair. Had to be.

Barry eyed him, the way you eyed a wild animal.

“I didn’t have sex with—with...” Wally swallowed hard. Girl. Barry thought that there was a girl in Wally’s bed. He felt the heat practically double, radiating off his face uncomfortably. He didn’t want to correct Barry, but he knew better than trying to hide that. I mean, what was he going to do? Hope no one realized that the guy in his bed was a guy, even after he woke up? “He’s. He’s not even a—”

Barry looked shocked.

“Oh my god, no! No, I didn’t. No one had sex with anyone, last night!” Wally said. Way too loud.

Barry and Wally looked at each other for a long moment, both flabbergasted.

“Wally?” Iris walked around the corner, into the hall. She was frowning and wiping her hands off on a dish towel. “Barry? What’s going on? Walls, honey, why are you shouting about having sex?” Wally glanced from her to Barry. “Or rather, not having sex,” Iris amended.

Barry didn’t quite meet his eye. Wally turned back to Iris. “Was I shouting?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

Wally just about jumped a mile at the unidentified male voice that jumped in.

“Sorry.”

Wally turned to find the sleeping beauty, amused and leaning on his doorframe. Wally hadn’t even heard the door open.

“I didn’t mean to,” the stranger motioned vaguely.

Wally glanced over his shoulder, where Iris and Barry had wide eyes fixed on the dark-haired male. He turned back to his stranger, still flustered, but also feeling a sudden burst of purpose. And worry. “What are you doing?” he frowned. “You shouldn’t be up!”

The stranger hummed and pulled his shirt – Wally’s shirt – up. He lightly traced the gauze-covered stitches Wally had threaded through the gash in his side. “They’re sturdy. I should be fine.”

“Fine!” Wally threw his hands in the air, then began ushering the stranger back into the room. “No. You need to rest or some shit. This is so not fine.”

The stranger tossed an amused grin over Wally’s shoulder, at Barry and Iris, while Wally manhandled him back to the bed, then turned his grin onto Wally. “I should really go, actually. My, uh, dad? He’ll be worried.”

“Call him,” Wally forced him to sit down.

“We’re not really a ‘call dad’ kind of family. If you could just give me back my—”

“Hell no, lie down.” Wally forcibly tucked him in. “I did  _ not  _ perform semi-conscious first aid to watch you prance around like you weren’t actively bleeding out when I found you, man.”

“Are you holding my things hostage?”

“Yeah.”

The guy laughed. “All right. You win. But I’ll take that call, I suppose.”

Wally walked around the bed, tugged his phone off the charger, unlocked the screen, and handed it off to the stranger. “Whatever, dude. I need a minute, though.”

“Right,” the guy grinned up at him. “ Gotta convince your dad that we didn’t have sex, right?”

Wally immediately  coloured bright, unfortunate red, once more. ”Shut up! And he’s not my dad, he’s my uncle!” Yeah, like that last bit was even important. He fled after that, closing the door behind him and leaning up against it. Suddenly, facing his Uncle Barry and Aunt Iris was a hundred times as desirable, if the alternative was dealing with some hot stranger who might have been flirting with him.

Maybe he just wanted the hot stranger to be flirting with him.

“Who was that?” Barry asked.

“I have no idea,” Wally scrubbed his hands over his face a few times.

“What?” Barry and Iris exchanged a look. Barry frowned and turned back to Wally. “You don’t know?”

“I found him after that last rogue run,” Wally mumbled. ”He was hurt, bad.”

“You could have taken him to a hospital,” Iris said.

“Yeah, no.” Wally shook his head. “He’s a mask.”

Iris nodded slowly.

“And he was really hurt. And I was  _ really  _ tired. I just... ran home, you know?” Wally silently begged them to understand, but also not to ask too many questions, especially if there was any chance of the ninja convalescent overhearing.

“Why’s he in your bed?” Barry asked.

“Honestly?” Wally huffed. “I didn’t think about it. I just did what I could. I cleaned his wounds, stitched and bandaged him up, changed him out of his costume...” he cleared his throat. “Yeah. Then I just threw on boxers and a tee and crawled into bed. I didn’t... you know. I didn’t think about it. I just. Let autopilot take the wheel.”

Barry sighed deeply.

Iris, though, looked satisfied. “Even dead on your feet, you couldn’t help doing one last good deed, could you?”

Wally shrugged.

“ That's my boy,” Iris said. She was proud of him in a way that Rudy had never been . Proud of him, supportive, trusting. She loved him in the ways Wally had always craved, because she loved him with no conditions, unlike Rudy.

“Reminds me of me n' Hal,” Barry offered. “When we first met.  You seemed to hit it off. With your, uh, new friend. Was that the first time you spoke to him?”

“Probably not, but it’s the first time he could respond back. Being as.  Ya know. He was unconscious before. And then asleep,” Wally shrugged. “I have no idea what I'm doing.”

Slowly, it filtered into Wally's mind that he'd handed his unlocked phone to the complete stranger.

He narrowly resisted the urge to tap into the Speed Force to return to his unlocked phone and the undeniably attractive stranger (that he really wished he’d settled in the guest room to avoid literally everything that had happened so far). He did, however, beat a quick return, regardless.

As Wally opened the door, the stranger glanced up, then muttered a farewell and hanged up on his call, clearly cutting the conversation short. He plastered on a frighteningly effective smile. “So, did you convince your uncle that you didn’t exhibit any shameful  homosexual tendencies,” he teased.

“Uh, no,” Wally frowned, eyebrows pinching together. “Barry’s cool. He knows I’m bi, so that’s really not the problem. The problem would have been the whole... sex with strangers thing. Stranger. Just the one. You. Oh my god, I hate this conversation.”

The guy tipped his head back and laughed. “I’m kidding. Seriously,” he pushed his hair out of his face. “Frankly, if that  _ was  _ the problem, I’d be worried about his relationship with his aviator friend.”

“Hal?”

The stranger nodded.

And... then it occurred to Wally that the stranger hadn’t met Hal and therefore shouldn’t have any clue about who he was. Or what his relationship with Barry was. “Uh, okay, hold up.” He put his hands out, as  if physically trying to stop the conversation. He would have laughed at himself, if he weren’t getting more unnerved by the second. “How do you even know that my uncle has a friend in the first place? Or what career he’s in? Or—”

“Oh please,” the stranger rolled his eyes. “Former Air Force pilot turned test pilot would have been more on point. And, technically, he hasn’t been either of those for five years, has he?”

“How do you...?”

“So, you have no idea who I am? Like, at all?” the stranger crossed his arms.

“Should I?”

“I mean, this is your house, isn’t it?”

Wally nodded slowly.

“Hell, your room. Your  _ bed _ . Shouldn’t you know something about your bedfellows?”

Wally rubbed his hands down his face. “So you know who Uncle Hal is. Great. Awesome. I’ll tell him he has a fan—”

“I’m more a Superman  kinda guy.”

“What does that have to do with my, with Hal?”

“Not really a GL  kinda guy,” the stranger said, looking smug.

And, okay, Full stop. Right there. How the hell did this guy know... no, Wally wasn’t going to jump to conclusions. Maybe the guy was just, like, super good at cold reading. Maybe he’d poked through the phone and found pictures or Hal’s contact information. GL didn’t have to mean...

Wally cleared his throat. “Okay, you’re freaking me out,” he said.

“That’s  kinda neat,” he said.

“Neat.”

“Yeah. How many people can say that they freak a speedster out,” the stranger sat up. “Besides my ‘dad,’ anyway.”

Wally could hear the quotes around ‘dad.’ “ Hang  on,” Wally waved his hand. “I am  _ so  _ not following.”

The guy just sat there, looking amused. “Well. You’re Kid Flash. Cuter under the cowl than I was expecting, but that’s a point in your  favour . Your uncle is Flash – the second one, specifically. Your... ah, other uncle, I suppose? He’s Green Lantern. Earth’s first of, like, four now, I think.”

Wally felt his jaw drop, but didn’t seem to have the wherewithal to amend that.

“Your aunt, though, is your only blood relation in the house. Technically speaking, neither Barry nor Hal are related to you, but because Barry’s with Iris and Hal’s with Barry, I guess it’s a bit transitive, right? I don’t know how the poly dynamic works between them, but they all live in the same house, so I suppose it does work, regardless of known specifics.”

“Jesus Christ. None of us even introduced ourselves,” Wally felt a jitter running through him, just under his skin. It was an anxiety thing, so he elected to ignore it for the moment.

“Wallace West,” the guy pointed at him.

“Wally,” he corrected, automatically.

“ Mmhm . You’re Kid Flash. Then there’s Bartholomew Allen, Harold Jordan, and Iris West. Or West-Allen? I don’t have the specifics about her, actually, since she’s not a cape, the way your uncles are.”

“Why do you even know that?” Wally demanded.

“Well, B’s always telling me to be prepared. I was heading into Flash territory, so I read up on your files. And Jay Garrick, of course. On the off chance that, during the emergencies, he was taking up the  suit again, however temporarily.”

“Who the hell is B?”

“Right,” the guy offered his hand, as well as a big smile. “I’m  Nightwing . I work with Batman.”

Wally squeaked and zipped away, long enough to grab Barry and shake him a few times, then drag him along back to the stranger’s bedside. “Say that last one again!” Wally  demanded .

The guy had his head leaned back again, and he was cackling. “My god, B doesn’t even have to work with people to instill the fear of god in them, does he?”

“Repeat it!” Wally demanded again.

The guy,  Nightwing , shook his head and turned to Barry, still smiling that cheerful smile that kind of gave Wally the creeps, though he couldn’t figure out why. “I’m  Nightwing ,” he said. “It’s okay, you probably haven’t heard of me. I’m mostly a Gotham/ Blüd haven cape.”

“The other part!” Wally whined.

Barry looked at him with amused confusion.

"I work with Batman.”

Barry stiffened. “Oh. My god.”

Nightwing nodded.

“But... but ‘I work alone’?”

“He’s a bit deluded. He hasn’t worked alone in, like, a decade. Longer if you count Agent A.”

Barry slapped his hand over his face. “Is he  gonna , like, show up here? Please say no. He scares the shit out of me!”

“Wait,” Wally said. “When you say you need to call your ‘dad’...”

“To be fair, he  _ is  _ my dad.”

Barry swore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Barry assumed that Wally woulda brought a girl home, if anyone, but don't think ill of him, it was a kneejerk panic lmao. He's a good uncle, v supportive and all that. Because I fucking said so.
> 
> I might be tipsy. Idk. Butt-end of tipsy where it's almost over and I should really be in bed, but hell, if it's almost 5am, anyway, why rush to bed? Why not post a fic instead? Why not poke at a few half-finished fics and write more for them? Including a proper Identiy Reveal fic and the first bit of the next part of [Grinning Shadow of the Bat](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29372790). (Which means, yes, I do plan to continue that -- in fact I actually wrote out a plan for it, a very low-detail plan, but a plan all the same!)
> 
> I also scrapped one version of a sequel to [ (Another) Death in the Family ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29326542) and started a different one that's cooperating a hell of a lot better.
> 
> Am I just throwing links in my end notes to try and coax people into clicking/reading? Maybe.  
> (Not really, I'm just giddy about remembering how to, as I call it because I'm a doofus, "a href" things, that is, how to embed links into text. I used to do it all the time in forums over on NaNoWriMo, and man have I missed it.)
> 
> In other news, I'm not angsty enough to write the third part of [Picking Up the Broken Pieces](https://archiveofourown.org/series/2128191), yet, but *emphatic motioning* I want to?? I just need a Mood. That's all. Then I can do the thing.
> 
> In other OTHER news, I'm thinking about writing something, like, in the Batman Telltale universe. I just. I deeply enjoy those games, even though they STRESS ME THE FUCK OUT XD stop making me make decisions, dayum. But like. Telltale Bruce is. I love him. Idk. That might be a thing, eventually. Idkk.
> 
> Wow, look^ how rambly all that is. I went all, like, extra ramble.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As it turned out, Batman did not, in fact, show up at Wally’s house, thank God (but also Jesus).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You thought I'd leave this be? ... I mean, I was gonna. But. *gesture* I didn't.

As it turned out, Batman did not, in fact, show up at Wally’s house, thank God (but also Jesus). 

Instead, Superman, equal parts pleasant and confused, showed up in their back yard and knocked on the back sliding door with a: “B said there was something of his here?” Because, apparently, Batman couldn’t be bothered to specify if he left a batarang or a _son_ somewhere. 

Nightwing, though, was ecstatic when he saw Superman. (Wally was pretty sure he heard an “Uncle Clark” in there, somewhere, but he didn’t feel like reading into that – knowing the goddamn Batman had a son was enough, he had no desire to wonder about romantic entanglements, even though that was immediately where his head went.) To his credit, Superman didn’t seem too surprised to see that the “thing” Batman had sent him for was, you know, his adult child. 

It all made Wally wonder how often Batman asked Superman to get something for him, only for that something to turn out to be a someone. 

And… that was it. Superman picked up Nightwing (literally – he gave him a piggyback ride) and flew off. Wally assumed that that would be the last he ever saw of Nightwing. It was a bit of a shame. Nightwing was funny, witty, sarcastic, and Wally enjoyed the few hours of time with him, even if he was shaken by the Bat revelation. Nightwing was also incredibly attractive, which Wally’s hormones delighted in torturing him over. But yeah, Wally expected that that was that. 

\-- 

“That” was most certainly not that, however. I mean, obviously. You’re still reading, aren’t you? 

Wally was out on patrol a few days later. More accurately, he was stopping for lunch (to the tune of a mountain of cheeseburgers) just after stopping a slew of minor break-ins, muggings, and one high-profile kidnapping case that had barely gotten off the ground. 

The important parts were that Wally was in costume, had just did a bunch of heroing, and was momentarily standing still while refueling via copious amounts of Big Belly Burger. And that precise moment, and that precise location, Wally was cornered by a vigilante who couldn't have seemed more out of place, in the daylight, unless he was the Batman himself. Or tossed in some pukey pastel hellscape. 

“Hey,” he greeted. 

Wally jumped a foot in the air and made a noise he would never, ever, _ever_ admit to. “Jesus!” 

“Nightwing, actually” he said. The little shit. 

“Yeah, I know. Do you always get people with heart attacks or am I just special?” Wally leaned against the counter, where he was waiting for his “Flash order” (which took much longer than most other orders, naturally). A glance aground told Wally that a bunch of the customers and most of the staff also had the bejeepers scared out of them. 

“Can't it be both?” 

God. Wally wished he knew whether or not this guy was flirting with him. 

He gave his best unimpressed look. “You're a Gotham mask, aren't you?” 

“Gotham, Blüdhaven.” 

“Mmhm, right. What brings you to my home territory? Besides my devilish good looks.” He kept his tone flat and sarcastic. 

Nightwing, though, took a step back and looked Wally over, head to toe. “Yeah, don't really think I need another reason.” And. Okay. That was definitely flirty. He also have a wide grin, just the side of shit-eating. 

“Oh please,” Wally knew he had the start of a flush on his face. He rolled his eyes. 

“Well, I did have an ulterior motive.” Nightwing moved past Wally and picked up his tray. Wally had never been quite embarrassed about his eating habits, before, but he suddenly felt hyper-aware of his pyramid of greasy cheeseburgers. “I wanted to thank you for the save. I should have probably done that first thing, but, you know.” 

“You were having too much fun at my expense?” Wally followed Nightwing to the back of the restaurant dining room. 

(Pfft, “dining room.” That didn't fit the atmosphere of the Big Belly Burger at all.) 

Nightwing tipped his head back and laughed. “Exactly.” He sat the tray on a table in the far corner, then helped himself to the burger that made up the very point of the pyramid. He was lucky he was cute, because Wally didn’t usually like sharing his food. Usually. But he was a weak disaster bi and Nightwing was. Yeah. 

Wally might have had a type. 

And Nightwing might have ticked absolutely every box in terms of Wally's type. 

Just. Damn. 

Ugh, Wally needed some horny-be-gone or something. A cold shower. He needed a cold shower. Instead, though, he sat with Nightwing at the far table and picked up a burger from the stack. 

Nightwing settled into a seat and pulled his legs up to sit cross-legged under the table. Wally sat across from him, but kept his feet firmly on the ground. “Well, I mean, you’ve thanked me for the save,” Wally reached for one of the burgers and felt the briefest pang of self-consciousness at just how many burgers were there. 

“No, I said that was my reason for being here,” Nightwing unwrapped his burger, but didn’t immediately dig into it. ”I haven’t decided how to thank you, yet. But,” he motioned to the burgers. “Given the calories you burn, I imagine that the amount of your expenses that is food has to be vastly disproportionate to the rest of your expenses, huh?” 

“Y,,,es?” 

“Well, there you have it,” he took a satisfied bite of his burger. “I’ll take you out to dinner.” 

Wally startled. Then, to cover up his sudden (weird) nervousness, he rushed through the burger in his hands, then another two. “Um,” he said, between the third and fourth burgers. “You-you don’t have to do that.” 

“Dinner and a movie,” he snapped his finger. It was vaguely reminiscent of Hal. Not in any physical resemblance, but just his sheer confidence and the quirk of his smile. 

“Uh,” Wally nervously went through another handful of burgers, losing count somewhere along the way. “You really don’t have to do anything like that. I mean. You’re right,” he looked down at the burger in his hands, number ten or something. “It’s a big chunk of speedster expenses, and—” 

“Yeah, that’s the point,” Nightwing interrupted. “So it’s gotta be one of the better ways to show appreciation to a speedster. Especially for someone like me.” 

“Like you?” Wally quirked an eyebrow. 

“I don’t have a card limit,” Nightwing shrugged, like that was nothing. “I can literally buy just about anything. And as much of it as I could possibly desire. How do you feel about Star Wars?” 

“Who doesn’t like Star Wars?” Wally had no idea how, but this guy was giving him conversational whiplash. Him. A speedster. “Look, a meal can cost hundreds, to satisfy a speedster’s apetite, dude.” 

“Dude,” he echoed back. His smile was absolutely brilliant. He’d only had a few bites of his burger, so far, but to his credit, he didn’t seem disgusted – at all – by Wally’s apetite. Or any part of his eating habits, down to that projected cost. “I can literally spend thousands without B batting an eye.” He stopped to snort at that. “Batting,” he repeated. 

Wally couldn’t help but snort, as well. 

But, god, Nightwing had a cute little snort, and that was even worse than recognizing how attractive he was, because it was a different facet. If Wally fell for too many of those facets, it’d be a hell of a challenge getting back to his feet, because he’d fall fast and hard. 

“So, here’s the idea,” he took another bite, chewed thoughtfully, and swallowed. Wally was weirdly willing to be patient through the whole thing. “This place makes good burgers,” he said. 

“Yeah,” Wally nodded. He was a bit more than halfway through the pyramid of burgers. 

“Here’s the idea,” Nightwing reiterated. “I’m gonna just, like, rent out a theater—” 

Wally choked. 

“Wh...what?” 

“I’m gonna rent out a theater,” Nightwing said. “And we’ll have a classic Star Wars marathon and a pizza buffet. All the pizza. I’ve always wanted to just straight up try everything on the menu, so like. All the menu items from a pizza place. Maybe two pizza places?” 

“Holy shit,” Wally couldn’t help the laughter that bubbled up. “Have you been thinking about this long?” 

“No, only for the last ten minutes,” Nightwing grinned. “And you said you liked Star Wars, so.” He shrugged. 

“So you just modeled everything into a Star Wars date night?” 

“Play your cards right and you might get lucky,” Nightwing winked at him, and Wally was only half sure that he was joking. “How much pizza do you think it would take to actually comfortably fill you up, by the way? Because, hell, my new goal is satisfying a speedster.” 

Wally choked. 

“Poor choice of words?” Nightwing asked. 

Wally gave him a flat look. 

Nightwing smiled in return, the picture of innocence. False innocence. 

“Jesus,” Wally rolled his eyes. 

“So? Pizza?” 

“I don’t even know,” Wally shook his head. “A lot.” 

“Because I want to outpace your metabolism so that you’re taking home leftovers,” he leaned his cheek into his knuckles, elbow propped on the table. “I know, I’m getting way ahead of myself, but hey. You saved my life, you’re cute, I don’t get a lot of junk food,” he counted them off on his free hand. “I don’t see a downside to this.” 

“So, what? It’s a date?” 

Nightwing shrugged. “Whatever you want it to be. I'm happy making a new friend in the superhero community, though, so no pressure or anything.” 

Wally continued his nervous eating, and he felt a little like Runt from Chicken Little while he was doing it. “You know what? Why not,” he was down to his last, like, three burgers. He counted it as a win that Nightwing was almost done with his burger at about the same time. It almost felt like a normal meal with their matching eating pace. “God, you must be rich to just do something like that on a whim, huh?” 

Nightwing laughed. “Something like that. How do you feel about Friday?” 

“Uh, this Friday?” 

“Sure, if you’re free. I’m usually patrolling my city, in the evening, but I can get one of my brothers to do it for me. So... maybe Friday at six? If you’re free.” He reiterated the last bit, almost as an afterthought. 

“Why do I get the feeling that you already know I’ll be free?” Wally rubbed a hand over the bottom half of his face, briefly hiding his smile. “Friday sounds good. Got a particular theater in mind?” 

Nightwing sat back, balling up his burger wrapper. He hummed. “I’m thinking some small-town, single-screen theater. I mean, the plan would be to rent the whole place out, but I’d hate to put a larger population of moviegoers out of a night at the movies just because I chose, like, the refurbished Monarch or something. And: Zetas, speedster. We could go literally anywhere... how about I get back to you closer to the date, huh?” 

The word “date” made Wally’s stomach do a little flip. 

“Okay,” he said. “Yeah, sure. Do you need my number?” 

Nightwing smiled. “I’d love to get your number,” he said. He leaned forward and propped his crossed arms on the tabletop. 

There was a long beat as Wally took in Nightwing’s expression and body language. Then he snorted. “You already have my number, don’t you?” 

“Maybe?” he shrugged. 

Wally laughed. 

“I left my number on your phone, actually. Presumptive, much, I know. It’s just under ‘N’ in your contacts. So you’ll know it’s me when I text you. And you’re welcome to text _me_ , too. If you want. Again, no pressure.” 

Wally’s laugh grew a bit more nervous. 

“It’s okay if you don’t want to, or if you’re not interested. I won’t be offended,” Nightwing tacked on. He looked no less amused, though. Or flirty, for that matter. Wally really loved the upward quirk of the corner of his mouth. 

“I’m interested,” Wally said. He slapped a hand to his forehead a millisecond after. How desperate could he sound, anyway? 

At least Nightwing was just laughing in that good-natured, amicable way. You know, the one that lets you know that the other person isn’t making fun of you or anything. The kind of laugh that goes with “laughing with” rather than “laughing at.” 

“I’ll text you, then?” Nightwing asked. 

“Yeah, totally,” Wally crumpled his last burger wrapped and dropped it on the tray. 

Nightwing swept the tray up as he stood. “Well, then I ought to head out,” he winked. How his wink was communicated through the lenses of his mask, Wally had no idea. It was actually a bit creepy, in addition to being one of the coolest applications of technology that Wally had seen in a long time. 

Wally stood as well and walked with Nightwing toward the door. Nightwing dumped the trash and set the tray with the stack of others, on top of the trash receptacle, then walked out of the store with Wally, who felt the eyes of the employees and patrons on his back. He didn’t blame them. Flashes were relatively normal, around there, sure. But Nightwing? If there was another vigilante in Central or Keystone, it generally wasn’t one that no one seemed to know the first thing about. And, even if it was, Wally would have never – personally – expected a vigilante like Nightwing to show up. 

And he was back to thinking about how attractive Nightwing was. Great. 

Nightwing glanced over at him, smiling again. “See you around, Flash,” he said. 

“Yeah,” Wally responded. Like an idiot. 

There was a moment after that where nothing happened, then the crazy Bat guy seemed to disappear, almost between blinks. Wally had a feeling he could find him again, if he tried really hard, but he also had the feeling that Nightwing, if he really wanted to, could get lost and stay lost, speedster abilities be damned. 

Wally returned to his patrolling, oddly giddy about Friday. 

And then it hit him, so suddenly he almost tripped over his own feet. 

Brothers. _Brothers_ . Nightwing had said that he’d ask one of his brothers to cover his patrol. He had multiple brothers. _Batman had multiple kids, holy shit._

Barry was going to flip! 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will I continue this even further? idk. Prrrobably? I mean, I'm gonna try, but I dunno if it'll be satisfactory, for me, and if it isn't, chances aren't great that I'll share it.
> 
> But yeah. Maybe. A solid maybe.
> 
> In other news: I pulled out YJ season 2, so that's like 90% of the battle in rewatching it. The other 90% is Endgame. The other 20% is motivation and time. Yeah, that's 200%. I maths.  
> \--
> 
> Edit:
> 
> SO! I was just wracking my brain today and realized that my brain was being absurdly predictable and just. Uninspired. Idk, it's an uninspired day/week for me.
> 
> Why'm I telling you this? Well, just to encourage ya'll to drop suggestions or whatever into the comments, of this or whatever. I don't care if it's for the current piece or something else, and I can't promise to use all suggestions (or any of them, even -- I won't make promises I don't know if I can keep lol).
> 
> But yeah, if you wanna drop suggestions or your favourite tropes or whatever? Do it. I love reading them, if nothing else. And if I (purposely, lol) use something someone commented, I'll definitely credit. 
> 
> If this is ridiculously rambling or disjointed, it's probably because I'm watching the pilot of Smallville (for either the fourth or fifth time -- it's one of my favourite pilots of anything lmao XD), while writing this.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wally tries to tell Barry and Iris about his Friday date. ...sort of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't remember what notes I wanted to put here. Um. Hi, hello, how are you?
> 
> I haven't been spam-posting fics, so I feel like I'm going through withdrawal, but I haven't stopped writing any fic... so... I guess I just miss you guys? Like, being overrun by comments and stuff. Idk. I love seeing that ya'll enjoy what I write, and I enjoy talking with ya'll and hearing your favourite tropes and ideas and stuff. XD
> 
> Do I even go more than a few days without posting here? Not lately. It feels like I'm drawing close to my inevitable accidental disappearance (for like a year, before returning).
> 
> Edit: I posted the original one shot only a week ago apparently! So no, I might feel like I'm not posting a lot for whatever reason, but apparently I've posted at least all the words In this three-shot (lmao) in the past week. Ish.
> 
> Also, yeah, it says complete. I do that when it's a one shot I'm turning into a more-than-one shot, apparently. And I try not to cliffhanger y'all on these, either, since it says complete and I'm a bit of a troll, but I'm not outright cruel, I promise.
> 
> FINALLY, since I re-read since posting now. I'm sorry, as always, about the weird formatting shit. That's not me, that's AO3 deciding to get weird with formatting between my copy/pasting and posting. It anyone has a workaround for that, I'm ears for it. (get it? Like I'm here for-- nevermind. XD)

There was a downside to the Friday date thing. 

I mean, usually Wally was free on a Friday night. He had been relatively meticulous in keeping the day free, so that he could have that day to unwind or socialize, to keep that bit of normalcy around, through all the hero stuff. 

Usually. 

And it was on him that he'd forgotten. Well. Not really “forgotten,” but yeah, forgotten. It wasn't like family calendar shit was something Nightwing could know, even if hee knew everything else. Not least because the family calendar was a whiteboard on the inside of the pantry door. 

It wasn't like it would be a big deal or anything, but Hal was due back from whatever space bullshit he'd been doing for the past two and a half weeks and Friday had, very tentatively, been set aside for a sort of family movie night. Wally was sure he could get out of it, and make it up to Hal later, but in order to do so, he was probably going to have to tell Barry about the date. 

Okay, he didn't _have_ to tell Barry about the date, but he would much rather be honest than give half-truths or vague excuses. So, rather, he was _goin_ _g to_ tell Barry about the date. With the Bat. But not the Big Scary Bat. Obviously. 

(And, god, the amount of Bats crawling out of the woodwork was, frankly, terrifying.) 

Wally had been dwelling on the upcoming date, and how best to play it down so that his desperate inner bi wouldn't be immediately visible to his uncle, with such single-mindedness that he slipped down about four of the carpeted stairs on his way down, walked into the arm of the couch, hit the kitchen doorframe on the way through, and finally fumbled his way into the back of his own chair. It was a great start to the day. 

He could tell from the look Iris was giving him that she had him dead to rights. Granted, Wally wasn’t sure what she had him dead to rights for, just that it was inescapable and beyond denial. There was a reason Iris had gravitated to journalism, after all, and her nose for news wasn't even the foremost reason. She was ruthless in picking things apart, even if those things included herself. She was also discerning (which was why Wally had never been able to lie to her) and blessed, or cursed, with eerily accurate hunches that she could pull out of nowhere. 

“Batman has at least three sons,” Wally spat out. 

Beside him, Barry startled, losing a poor, beautiful piece of bacon to the no man's land under the table. It was almost impressive. “What?” 

Iris's gaze shifted slightly. 

Uh-oh, she knew Wally was trying to divert her attention. 

“Yeah, I was just thinking about it,” Wally chattered on. “Nightwing mentioned brothers, so he has at least two, and if he's Batman's son, his brothers would also be Batman's sons.” 

“I don't remember him mentioning brothers,” Iris said. 

Barry looked stricken. Wally pulled up his phone and took a quick snap of the expression, almost on autopilot. Barry didn't look less stricken after the impromptu photo op. 

“Uh, right,” Wally put his phone down, deliberately slow. “He didn't.” 

“At least, not while he was under our roof,” Iris continued. 

“He coulda told me when we were alone,” he gave his aunt his best stink eye. It wasn’t that great. 

“You would have been tormenting your uncle a lot sooner if you'd known it since then, Wally,” Iris laughed, a brief and elegant huff of amusement before she fixed reporter’s steel on her nephew. That was a look you didn't mess with or try to lie to. Not if you knew what was good for you. “You saw him again, then? When? Where?” 

Wally groaned and leaned back in his chair. Conversations like this never seemed to be on his own terms. 

“Kids,” Barry muttered. 

Wally and Iris both looked at him. 

“Batman has. He has kids.” Barry turned mournful eyes up to Iris. “My life will never be the same, Ie. Everything's different.” 

Iris's sighed and rubbed her brow for a moment. “I swear, you two are the exact same level of dramatic. It gets hard, being the only sensible person in the house, you know.” 

Wally opened his mouth to ask about Hal. Then remembered that it was _Hal_ and snapped his mouth back shut. If there was anyone more dramatic than the two speedsters at the breakfast table, it was Hal. Hal and his mild abuses of his Ring (it wasn't meant for getting beers or snacks without Hal needing too get off his ass), his ridiculously overcomplicated constructs (which, again, weren’t supposed to be meant for beer or snack fetching purposes), his aviator jacket, and just… everything. Hal was extra for the sake of being extra (which Wally loved, honestly). 

“He tracked me down on a break between patrols,” Wally found himself saying. “He startled the shit out of me. Then we, uh, grabbed lunch, I guess.” 

“You guess?” Iris went from trying to beat back a headache to smothering a smile. 

“He just kind of showed up and inserted himself. Which was how he scared the shit out of me. But yeah, we had lunch. He mentioned brothers. Plural. Do you think Batman has, like, an army of children or something? Where has he been hiding them? Under his cape?” 

Barry made a small noise vaguely reminiscent of a cow giving birth, then pushed his breakfast to one side and gently lay his head down. 

Wally regarded his uncle for a long moment, then snapped another photo. He sent both to the family group text thread, satisfied that Barry's pain would not be forgotten for, like, the next year. Hal would probably frame those pictures. He would definitely frame them after Wally told him why Barry was making those faces in the first place. 

“So. You went out for lunch,” Iris was starting to give that slow, sly smile. Wally recognized it from all the times she’d caught him in a crush, particularly the times she'd caught him in a crush before he'd managed to catch himself in a crush. 

“He stole one of my burgers,” Wally's gaze skittered away from his aunt’s. 

Iris gasped beatifically. A quick glance told Wally that she had her hands clasped and her gaze lifted to the ceiling, a clear sparkle in them, like she was thanking the universe for something. 

Uh-oh. 

That meant that something Wally said was cute. Iris was a breath away from squealing, or her own variation of it where she peppered him with incessant questions but didn't listen to a single thing he actually said in return. Same difference. “You let him steal a burger?” Iris asked. 

Oh. Oh no, that was right. If there was anyone on earth who was aware of just how protective of his food Wally could be, it was Iris (in part because he'd basically been hoarding it under his bed for the first month of living with Iris). 

“Uhh…” Wally straightened in his seat. 

“Wally!” Iris clapped excitedly. “Walls, sweetie! That's so cute! You have a crush! What are you gonna do about it? Don't let him slip through your fingers without giving it a proper go, okay? You two would be adorable together. Wait, does this mean you could end up marrying into Batman's family? Oh my god.” 

Barry groaned against the tabletop, as soon as Batman was mentioned, like the world as he knew it was ending and it was Wally's fault. Yeah, that's right. Barry was at peak dramatics. Wally just wished he could bask in his uncle's pain, rather than trying to sidestep a conversation about his lovelife. 

“Let's not get carried away, now, Aunt Ie,” Wally slouched back into the comfortable shape of an overripe banana and dropped his gaze back down to his phone. 

Maybe he could send that second picture of Barry to Nightwing? 

“Wally, please, tell me you at least have that handsome young man's number, Iris said. 

Wally most certainly did _not_ want to admit to having his number, actually. He hummed noncommittally and hit share on the photo, then pulled up the mysterious “N” contact. 

“Come on, Walls,” Iris pleaded. “How often do you have a shot at someone who participates in the same extracurriculars as you?” 

“Uh. Plenty?” Wally glanced up, thumb hovering over the send button. “Titans, remember?” 

“I don't mean Roy.” Iris sighed and propped her chin up in her palm. “I have nothing against him. I've heard he's cleaned up his act a good deal. But I think you might be a bit young to go around dating single fathers.” 

“Oh, ew,” Wally laughed. “I love Roy, honest, but he's not my type, like, at all. Besides, he made some mystery friend Lian's godfather and I'm not over it, like, at all.” He glanced back down at his phone and. Froze. 

Uh-oh. A worse uh-oh than earlier, actually. 

He felt his eyes widen and his heart stutter arhythmically for a solid second, maybe even two. He'd hit send, sometime between looking up to respond to his aunt and returning his gaze to his device. Sometimes, Wally really wished life had an undo button, because he was suddenly not sure he wanted to have sent that picture after all. Or any text! Maybe he should have waited and let Nightwing send a text first, even! 

Wally glanced back up to find Iris's looking at him in concern. Barry had lifted his head to give Wally a wary look, on top of Iris’s concern. 

“Walls?” Iris said. 

“I think I just committed a social gaffe,” Wally said. 

Iris and Barry both deflated in relief. “Oh,” Iris said. She smiled again. “You poor thing. Who are you…?” 

Wally instinctively pulled his phone to his chest, even though Iris had made no move to reach for or look at it. Shit. That definitely made him look sketchy. “Let me commit my social gaffes in peace!” he said. 

Iris snorted, then covered her mouth. 

“Did you accidentally send someone nudes?” Barry asked. 

Wally gave him a withering glare. Or tried to, at least. He was already missing the Barry who was so overcome with Bat-fear that he'd lost all will to even hold his head up. This other side of Barry was all too willing to participate in a joke at his nephew’s expense. 

Curse all that time Barry and Hal had spent together over the years. Hal had clearly rubbed off on… oh god, was that an innuendo? 

Ew. Eww! 

Wally tilted his head back and groaned as he dropped his hands and phone to his lap, wishing once more for the real life undo button. At the same time, or roundabouts the same time, Wally's text notification went off. 

“No, I didn't accidentally send nudes to anyone. Who would want pictures of my freckled ass anyway,” Wally said. He didn't look at his aunt and uncle, though he could feel the amused look they exchanged. Instead, he unlocked his phone and checked his texts. 

**N, 8:14a** **m** **:** _[your uncle is such a mood]_

Wally snorted and felt a smile beginning on his face. 

“Crisis averted?” Iris asked. 

Wally's phone went off again. And again. And kept going. 

**N, 8:15a** **m** **:** _[you texted first_ _!]_

**N, 8:15a** **m** **:** _[that’s permission]_

**N, 8:1** **5** **a** **m** **:** _[_ _that means I get to text you whenever_ _I_ _feel like it!]_

**N, 8:1** **6** **am:** _[no_ _takebacks_ _allowed]_

**N, 8:1** **7** **am:** _[[_ _img_ _attached]]_

Wally watched the texts come in, one after another, eyebrows crawling towards his hairline. That was more texts than he'd received, total, in the last week, and it had been less than give minutes! 

“Um, yeah,” Wally said, eyes glued to his phone. “Crisis averted.” 

He opened the attached image to find a selfie of an extremely tired looking Nightwing behind a blue plastic bowl of cereal. Lucky Charms, in Wally's expert opinion. 

**N, 8:18a** **m** **:** _[_ _and_ _that includes selfies_ _bc_ _reasons_ _!_ _]_

**N, 8:** **20a** **m** **:** _[sorry, I haven’t slept yet today]_

**N, 8:** **20** **a** **m** **:** _[_ _i'm_ _running on_ _caffeine and_ _willpow_ _er right now]_

“Or not,” Wally muttered, to himself. Was this Bat self-destructive or something? First the ribs, now this! Sleep was an essential component of healthy living! 

**Me, 8:22a** **m** **:** _[What the heck, dude. Go to sleep!]_

The dick sent back a bunch of laughing/crying emojis. There Wally was, being appropriately concerned about a clear lack of sleep and self-care, and a barrage of laughing/crying emojis was his reward. 

Wally squinted down at his phone and tried to shake the feeling that this exchange was a portent of things to come. He sent another text urging Nightwing to sleep, for the love of cheeseburgers. Sleep! 

**N, 8:27a** **m** **:** _[_ _i'd_ _be tempted if you we're offering to nap_ _*with* me]_

Wally promptly fumbled with and dropped his phone, then bowed his head into both his hands in shame as he completely ignored his aunt and uncle's renewed questioning. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I still can't remember what I wanted to put here, either. Uhh. Favourite part, go! Or idk, suggestions or what have you. XD
> 
> Edit: Oh okay, I remembered. Sorta.
> 
> I realize Sally didn't act-- Sally, wow. I realize that Wally didn't actually tell Barry and Iris about the date. He intended to, but as per usual, Wally doesn't have the situation quite in hand (like me lmao). He's going to try again, next chapter.
> 
> What disasters will plague him next time? Tune in next time to find out! XD
> 
> And if you're reading this before chapter 4 is up/written, feel free to make suggestions. I keep suggestions on mind not just for this, but for fic in general -- as always, no promises that I'll use any suggestions, but if I intentionally use your idea (as opposed to accidentally coming up with the same idea on my own), you'll absolutely receive credit, fam! And I do promise to read and admire all suggestions!
> 
> I particularly love when you guys mention your favourite tropes, whether they're Batfam (or Flashfam or DC...) specific or otherwise. Like, I love reading Batfam meets JL crap, and I started writing it because there's just not enough in the tag lmao. I also love Tim/Coffee and Tim/Weird Places to Nap. *finger guns*


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wally still doesn't get to do anything on his own terms. Is it even a surprise at this point?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really don't understand why the formatting gets so wonky, but yeah, obligatory mention of and apology for the wonky formatting, lol.

All that breakfast-time activity and, somehow, Wally had managed to  no t mention the one thing he had intended to mention: the date. The date he had. With  Nightwing . That date.

In the time between breakfast and realizing  he'd forgotten to mention the date to his aunt and uncle, Wally had allowed  Nightwing to badger him into a selfie (which Wally sent, in exchanges for a promise to nap for at least half an hour), made  Nightwing’s cereal selfie his contact picture, cleaned about half his room before getting distracted by  an old  Rubik’s cube he found under his desk , and  ate a box of slightly expired fruit snacks. Not a very eventful afternoon, no.

And then, of course, he realized he'd forgotten to mention the stupid date to Barry and Iris.

Wally flopped backwards and lay in the middle of his floor, bemoaning the fact that he’d have to have another awkward conversation with Barry and Iris, so soon after  barely surviving the first conversation. He was still  laing in the middle of his floor, in his half-cleaned room (Rubik’s cube  abanoned beside him), when Barry knocked and cracked his door open.

Barry regarded  Wally. Wall y regarded Barry in return.

“Hey,” Barry greeted, slowly.

“Sup,” Wally returned.

Barry nodded. Wally nodded. The silence stretched thinly between them. “So,” Barry said. “ You look ready for a  break from the whole ‘cleaning your room’ thing.” He motioned to Wally’s laundry , which hadn’t made it into his dresser, yet.

“Possibly,” Wally agreed.

Barry snorted.

“Definitely,”  Wally amended, grinning.

Barry opened his mouth, which made it appear as if the following doorbell  chime came out of his mouth. He blinked and glanced toward the stairs (where, incidentally, the doorbell’s chime was situated) . Wally sat up and looked vaguely in the same direction.

“Expecting anyone?” Wally asked.

“Uh. No,” Barry turned back to Wally. “I was  gonna head to STAR. Maybe Iris…?”

Wally shook his head, “Aunt  Ie was  gonna work on  next week’s piece. She needs to have it in by Friday, and she didn’t want to be scrambling on Friday.” There was that one weekday, again. Wally didn’t quite wince, but it was a near thing.

Distantly, Wally could hear Iris answering the door. He was curious about their unexpected guest. Was is Scout seasons? No, that didn’t sound right.  Though he could definitely go for a box of Thin Mints, now that Scouts were on his mind.

Wally hopped up . “Well, I’m dying of  curiousity . You?”

“Yeah…” Barry shoved off from Wally’s doorframe and headed down the stairs.

Wally followed shortly behind.

When Barry and Wally hit the first floor (not literally, thank god), Iris was just closing the door behind their unexpected guest , after having invited them in. It was a short, skinny Asian( ish ?  h alf-Asian?) kid in  need of a hair cut and wearing  a  black hoodie that looked at least four sizes too big for him. The kid had a clipboard at hand and glasses (reading or otherwise) slipping down his nose , which gave him a vague sense of authority and professionalism. Were MLMs recruiting kids that  young for their direct sales schemes , now? Or was it a school project, rather than direct sales?

“Barry, Walls!” Iris greeted. “This is Cal .” She motioned to the kid, beaming .

The kid awkwardly raised a hand in greeting. He was practically full sweater-paw mode. And he didn’t look like a Cal at all, in Wally’s opinion.

“Hey,” Wally greeted.

Cal lit up, but  he lit up  in a weird, intense way. He leaned over his clipboard and scribbled something down. No,  he didn’t scribble something down on his clipboard, but something onto his tablet, with a stylus he had in hand. Wally felt oddly like a bug being observed by a scientist who was getting ready to pin him to a card , which was dumb. Obviously.

“Cal tells me he’s interning at STAR, starting next week ,” Iris said.

Barry and Wally exchanged a confused look.

“Not to be rude, but… why is he here, then?” Wally asked. He turned to Cal, “Sorry, I mean. Why are  _ you  _ here, then.”

“ I had a few questions for Mr. Allen,” Cal said.

Wally thought Cal was oddly focused on him, rather than Barry, for someone who had questions for Barry. He also  felt like questions were easier over, like, email or phone or, heck, text. But he nodded. It didn’t feel right, calling out some  earnest science kid , no matter how weird Wally felt.  Curse you, social graces!

“Would you like a drink?” Iris asked. “Or something  to eat?”

Cal lit up and finally turned his attention away from Wally . “Coffee?” he asked.

“Oh, absolutely , just hang on a second,” Iris flitted off to the kitchen, apparently thrilled to be hosting. Barry meandered after her, still looking confused, and left Wally alone with the random guest.

“Bit young for coffee, aren’t you?” Wally asked.

For his trouble,  Wally received the almighty stink-eye. “I’m  sixteen .”

What?

“What?” Wally blinked a few times . He looked, like,  twelve . Maybe  fourteen , at a stretch. “No way.”

Cal threw a free hand in the air. “Do you want my driver’s license?” he asked. The sudden sarcasm made him sound like more of a real person, which Wally was equal parts happy and confused with. He had no idea who this kid was. “I don’t have it on me, so don’t ask.”

“No, uh. Sorry. You just look really young,” Wally supposed it could be, in part, the huge hoodie, but the kid was short for  sixteen . He could have passed for younger so easily, thus Wally’s initial estimates of his age.

“Yeah, whatever, I get it a lot,” Cal adjusted his glasses and plastered on a smile so clean and bright, particularly after that Olympic-grade stink-eye, that Wally couldn’t help but think of the  false veneer of some public speakers and politicians. And reporters like Cat Grant .

N ot that Wally would call Cat Grant a “reporter” around Iris. That would invite trouble. “Gossip isn’t news” and all that.

Cal glanced toward the kitchen, then moved closer to Wally. “So, hey, would you mind if I asked you a few questions?”

“ Ithought you were here to talk to Uncle Barry.”

“ You’re studying at UMCK, right?” Cal asked.

“Uh—”

“And interning at STAR.”

“Yeah?”

“ Do you have a job, too?”

“I intern at STAR. That’s paid, man. It  _ is  _ my job,” Wally said.  It was generous pay, too, given how few hours Wally actually spent at the STAR Labs facility in Central/Keystone. “And I tutor, sometimes. Wait. How did you know I was at UMKC?”

“I asked around a bit,” Cal shrugged. He was scribbling his stylus against his tablet screen, again. “Do you have any allergies?”

“What?”

“Addictions? Do you take medications?”

“Hold on—”

“ Do you experience ADHD or mental illness? Your file implies ADHD, but does that predate the Accident, postdate the Accident, or both?”

“How do you—file?”

“What are your intentions toward my brother?”

“Oh my god, you’re giving me whiplash. What do you mean, brother?" Wally rubbed his hands down his face. He hadn’t been this off-guard since… “Oh fuck. You’re not here about internship questions, are you?”

“Well, n ot the brightest bulb, but not as dumb as  initially expected.” Cal scrolled down his tablet, then started tapping at  the screen.

“I think I’m offended,” Wally said into his palms.

“Offended about what, Walls?” Iris asked.

Wally peeked between his fingers and watched Barry and Iris walk up to them.

“I was just wondering about his internship’s parameters,  ya know?” Cal’s false smile was eerily honest in appearance. He adjusted his glasses and then accepted the mug of coffee from Iris. “What qualified him to receive the internship when he did, why it didn’t translate into a fulltime position. That sort of thing. I didn’t mean to be offensive, though.”

“I have milk and sugar in the kitchen, if you want any,” Iris said.

“That’s not what he asked,” Wally dropped his hands.

Cal turned to shoot him a dark look.

Wally froze up. “Christ, where did you learn the Gorgon stare?”

Cal rearranged his face into confusion, but Wally wasn’t buying it and, if Wally wasn’t buying it, Iris and Barry wouldn’t buy it, either. They trusted their pseudo-son, after all.

Wally scowled. “I’m, like, ninety percent sure this kid isn’t actually here about a STAR internship.”

“ No?” Iris asked.

“No.” Wally motioned toward Cal. “I bet his name isn’t Cal, either. ”

“Spoilsport,” Cal tapped the edge of his tablet, irritation clear in the rhythm of his tapping.

“Who, exactly…?” Barry motioned between Cal and Wally.

“ Nightwing’s little brother is my guess,” Wally said. “I mean, I wasn’t expecting his brother to be. Uh.”

“We’re all adopted,” Cal cut him off. “Mostly.”

“Aha! That was confirmation!” Wally pointed at Cal, victorious and grinning in spite of Cal’s complete lack of amusement. “That was a confirmation. It’s  Nightwing’s brother. I mean, he asked me what my intentions toward his ‘brother’ were and I haven’t had intentions toward anyone else, so it wasn’t that difficult to—no, not that I have intentions toward  Nightwing !”

Wally’s sense of victory fled as he turned toward Barry  and Iris.

“ Nightwing’s brother,” Iris said, seeming less than surprised. Wally hated her for, like, a quarter of a second , for her lack of surprise.

Cal shrugged, noncommittal.

“Intentions toward his brother, huh?” Barry asked. He hadn’t really connected the conversation to Batman, yet, so  he was still fully present and operational, as a person. Which was unfortunate, given the turn that the conversation was taking.

“I just said don’t have intentions tow—”

“ Then what about Friday?” Cal interrupted.

Wally stiffened. “ What do—how. No, wait. That? That I can explain,” Wally turned to address that to Cal. Well, to “Cal.” Then he turned to Barry and Iris,  “That I can explain,” he repeated.

Barry looked at Wally suspiciously. Iris nodded to herself, like she already knew. Was there anything Iris didn’t know? Or that surprised her?

Wally turned to glare at “Cal,” albeit weakly. “How do you even know about Friday?”

Cal  pulled his phone out of his back pocket (a  brand new  Wayne Tech release , Wally noted inwardly , and totally not jealously or anything ) . Cal unlocked his phone with his fingerprint and  tapped through a few screens that lit the reflection in his glasses with different  colours . Then he turned the phone around to show Wally a picture of himself. His selfie. The one that the dick pestered him into taking and sending.

It was just a run-of-the-mill selfie, nothing special. Wally was lying on his bed and just took a selfie from above . His smile brought out his freckles, which he fucking hated. But that wasn’t what Wally was stuck on. He was stuck on the fact that  _ Cal  _ had the selfie he’d sent to  _ Nightwing _ _. _

Cal oh so helpfully turned to show it to Barry and Iris, too.

“Stop that,” Wally pointed at Cal. “How—”

“Group chat ,” Cal interrupted. “ He hasn’t shut  _ up  _ about you since this morning when you sent him a picture or a meme or whatever, I don’t know. He was basically incoherent . Which, wow, weak. I can go seventy-two hours before I reach  _ that  _ level of incoherent . He can barely go thirty-six.”

There was a beat of silence.

“Oh my god,” Barry said softly.

“Yeah, oh my god,” Wally nodded.  He turned back to Cal.  “I have the sudden urge to wrap you in a blanket and make you take a nap.”

“It’s a useful  skill,” Cal defended.

Wally pulled his own phone out (most certainly  _ not  _ the latest Wayne Tech release, sadly) and unlocked it. He entered his texts and tapped the N message thread.

** Me, 12:36pm:  ** _ [ _ _ Hey, your brother showed up at my house. I think he needs a nap. Also he’s exposing me to my aunt and uncle and I hate it.] _

Wally glanced  back up at Cal, who was in the middle of glaring at him with the kind  of vehemence and uncanny knowing that he usually received from Iris when she was in full reporter mode. “I still want to know your intentions toward N,” he said.

Wally pinched the bridge of his nose. “My intentions . I don’t even—I don’t know. He asked me out, man.”

“He asked you out?” Iris didn’t sound like she actually needed an answer. Like she’d known since breakfast. Like she’d read it off Wally’s body language as soon as she’d seen him, that morning. “Wally! That’s great. You said yes, right?  One step closer to marriage, kid.”

“Whoa!” Wally turned wide eyes to his aunt.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,"  Barry shuddered. “I feel old enough without thinking about Wally marrying someone.”

“No, yeah, I’m pretty sure N started planning the wedding,” Cal said. He still had that stink eye o n, like he was challenging Wally to something.

“I’m not wearing the dress,” Wally pointed at Cal. “Tell him.”

It was a weak-ass joke, but it seemed to do the job, because Cal’s stink-eye faded and he nodded in approval. “ You know what? I think I know what I think about you and N. I think I might approve.”

“Oh,” Wally tilted his head. “Thank… you?”

Cal shrugged.

Wally turned to Barry and Iris. “Uh. One family member down, I guess.”

“Oh, that makes you sound serious about him, Walls,” Iris curled her hands into little, excited fists, close to her heart. “I’m so excited! I can’t wait to tell Hal. Barry, Hal’s going to be thrilled!”

“What. Why?” Barry frowned.

“Hal’s been waiting for Wally to start dating someone,” Iris said. “Wally hasn’t done any serious dating since before Hal was an official part of the household. He’s going to be excited to do all the teasing and stuff.”

“Oh,” Barry raised his eyebrows, then smiled gradually, softly. “You’re right,  Ie . As usual.”

Wally sighed and turned back to Cal. “How many more of you am I going to have to go through just to get to this one date?  I mean , for all you know, it’ll go horrible and we won’t even have a second date.”

Cal shrugged. “I  dunno . It depends on who cares and how much. But he hasn’t been this enthusiastic about a date since, I don’t even know. A while. ”

“Oh,” Wally said. And. Oh. That was. That was something. That was nice? There was a subtle, fuzzy warmth building in Wally’s chest,  happy and flattered. His stomach, on the other hand, was on that excited anxiety that he usually related to rollercoasters and new science projects. Or related to rollercoasters back before he was able to run faster than rollercoasters, anyway.

Cal shrugged again. Another silence fell between the four conversation members, which Cal broke with an, “Oh . ”  H e put his phone away, belatedly, and  rubbed the back of his neck. “And thanks for, you know, saving him. We knew it was bad. He went off  comms and everything. If you hadn’t been there… yeah. ”

“Plenty of people would have done the same, I was just in the right place at the right time,” Wally said.

“Shit,” Cal frowned.

“What?”

“You’re actually, like, a good person. I really wanted to cling to some of my dislike. You know, as a principle,” Cal groaned and looked at the ceiling for help. He didn’t appear to find any help in the  ceiling, though. “There goes that, I guess.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What am I even doing? It's been about a day since I put up the last chapter, what am I even doing immediately posting another? Well. I got all excited and stuff because I thought "hey, I'm gonna have Tim show up" and then just sort of ran away with that idea.
> 
> Feel free to suggest things, as per usual. And tell me what you liked best about this chapter, what you'd love to see in future fic or chapters, what tropes you love, idk. All the things. Got a rarepair you want to lament about? I'll listen to that, too. I whinge enough about my own rarepair hell, anyway, lol.
> 
> Okay, I think I'm going to go to bed. Peace out, folks. I'll probably edit the beginning and/or end notes tomorrow. I'm just, whew, tired out!
> 
> I'll probably tag Timbo into the fic tomorrow too. So I guess you first readers will get him as a surprise. Woo! Yes, Cal is "Cal Corcoran" or whatever Future's End Tim goes by. I don't know anything about Future's End besides what I gleaned by skimming Tim's fandom page lmao. I just liked the alias. But Wounded Duck Bar, huh? Like maybe a wounded... drake? Hm? I don't find that subtle, Timbo.
> 
> Edit: I remembered one of the things I was gonna mention! UMCK. In the real world, that would be UMKC, University of Missouri - Kansas City. I've appropriated it and changed it to UMCK, University of Missouri - Central and Keystone.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wally gets a response, in regards to "Cal." Wally and Iris chat. And Wally experiences an interesting text conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Moonlight22oa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonlight22oa/pseuds/Moonlight22oa) asked in a comment on the last chapter how Dick responded to Wally's text. I ghosted that part of their comment because I'd already written the beginning of this, which includes Dick's response, and I didn't trust myself not to spoil my own crap. XD I'm sorry, Moonlight!
> 
> Edit: formatting is, as per usual, a trash show. I don't know why, but it gets even worse when I'm doing texts. It's. Ugh. Frustrating. XD 
> 
> But yeah, formatting issues abound! Sorry about that. Ao3 just doesn't like when I copy/paste directly from a Word document. I mean, I could try completely eliminating formatting, but then I wouldn't have my bolds and italics and I just don't like the look of my texting layout without that formatting!

** Me, 12:36pm:  ** _ [Hey, your brother showed up at my house. I think he needs a nap. Also he’s exposing me to my aunt and uncle and I hate it.] _

** N, 2:03pm:  ** _ [yikes, sorry about that!] _

** N, 2:04pm:  ** _ [ _ _ i _ _ just woke up n saw your text.] _

** N, 2:05pm:  ** _ [which one? brother  _ _ i _ _ mean.] _

** N, 2:05pm:  ** _ [wait  _ _ nvm _ _ – needs a nap? prolyl RR.] _

** Me, 2:11pm:  ** _ [He was going by Cal.] _

** N, 2:11pm:  ** _ [ _ _ yeh _ _ sounds like red robin] _

** N, 2:12pm:  ** _ [he’s extra enough to pull a fake identity to do his shit in off-duty hours like that.] _

** N, 2:14pm:  ** _ [ _ _ babybird _ _ means well, but he comes across a bit strong sometimes lol] _

** Me, 2:15pm:  ** _ [Crazy kid asked me about everything from allergies to ADHD to my “intentions.”] _

** N, 2:17pm:  ** _ [intentions huh?] _

** N, 2:18pm:  ** _ [god I hope you have some untoward intentions ;) ] _

** N, 2:23pm:  ** _ [shit, was that too much?]  _

** N, 2:25pm:  ** _ [oh god please still consider dating me, I didn’t mean to be weird!] _

** N, 2:27pm:  ** _ [ _ _ ahhh _ __ _ im _ _ sorry dude] _

** Me, 2:31pm:  ** _ [Sorry! I dropped my phone and it fell behind my dresser!] _

** N, 2:31pm:  ** _ [oh thank  _ _ fuCK _ _.] _

** N, 2:33pm:  ** _ [wait, isn’t your dresser across the room from, like, both your bed and your desk?] _

** N, 2:33pm:  ** _ [how did you get your phone behind your dresser?] _

** Me, 2:34pm:  ** _ [You’re good, seriously! I’m not admitting to any untoward thoughts or intentions though because I’m a gentleman.] _

** N, 2:34pm:  ** _ [ _ _ i _ _ swoon.] _

** Me, 2:35pm:  ** _ [And yes, my dresser is across the room.] _

** N, 2:36pm:  ** _ [lmao] _

** Me, 2:36pm:  ** _ [I say “dropped” but actually I kind of threw my phone.] _

** N, 2:37pm:  ** _ [ _ _ lmaooo _ _ why  _ _ tho _ _?] _

** Me, 2:38pm:  ** _ [Because I’m a hot mess.] _

** Me, 2:39pm:  ** _ [And my Aunt came into my room while we were texting and I panicked. She’s nosy!] _

** N ** ** , 2:39pm:  ** _ [emphasis on hot ;) ] _

** N, 2:40pm:  ** _ [lmao  _ _ youre _ _ precious] _

\--

So. Iris and Barry knew about his date, and that it was Friday. No one even mentioned the movie night, though, and Wally felt a bit bad about that.

As soon as  he tried to bring it up, though, Iris brushed him off. “We’ll do something Saturday morning, then . Or afternoon, if you’re out late,” she gave him a sly smile.

“Aunt  Ie ,” Wally groaned.

“What I mean is, we’ll figure it out. Just enjoy your date, okay? ” and she went back to loading the dishwasher, which was something she liked to do without speedster aid. “Barry, Hal, and I will do movie night, just us old people, and we’ll have a family night next Friday, plus whatever we come up with Saturday. Easy. You know how flexible your uncles are.”

Uncles. Iris didn’t always toss Hal into the “uncle” category, the way Wally did,  so it always warmed his heart when she did.

“Yeah, I guess so ,” he smiled softly. “I mean. It’s been ages. I feel bad  skipping out on Hal, you know?”

“Wally,” Iris straightened and fixed him with a playful glare. “You know how he’d hate that, sweetie.  He wants nothing more than your happiness, and Barry’s, and mine. He couldn’t care less about one postpone d family night . Well, you know what I mean. He loves family nights. But he won’t begrudge you  a Friday, and you know it.  Besides, he lives here, honey. You’re only missing out on one evening , and you’ll see him at breakfast – provided he’s not ‘jet’ lagged and doesn’t sleep in. ”

Wally nodded.

“And that you don’t stay over with your new friend,” Iris winked at him.

“ Aunt  Ie !” Wally covered his ears. “ Nooo ,” he whined, “don’t talk about  stuff like that! Don’t you know that kids prefer to think of their parental figures as asexual beings?”

“Aw, honey, that’s unrealistic,” Iris patted him on the shoulder , but gave such an unsympathetic smile that the comfort was entirely superseded. “You’ve seen Barry getting all kissy-face with me and Hal before. What makes you think it stops there?”

“ Ie !” Wally  squeaked.

Iris laughed.

Wally made his escape shortly after . He didn’t even bother trying to bring it up with Barry, mostly because he didn’t want it getting  gback to Iris that Wally was still worrying about it, after their conversation.

\--

Wally woke up to a notification light blinking on his phone. He wondered if this was his new normal, the kind of normal that people with close friends or significant others got to experience.

** N, 3:12am:  ** _ [[ _ _ img _ __ _ attached]] _

Wally  smothered his smile with his free hand.

Nightwing’s selfie was a well-composed, but lazy, picture of him in a Flash tee shirt and boxers,  laying against an alarming amount of pillows and flashing a peace sign to his phone’s camera. He had his  lduck face on,  hopefully ironically, and a wink in place.

Wally then processed the next text.

** N, 3:13am:  ** _ [got stabbed on patrol lol] _

** N, 3:13am:  ** _ [got to go home early  _ _ cuz _ _ of it.] _

** N, 3:14am:  ** _ [if 3am can be called early lmao] _

Wally’s smile melted into a frown. Stabbing was just one of the many risks of the gig, he knew, but that was an awfully lighthearted way to mention  an injury …

** Me, 8:22am: ** _ [Are you okay? _ _ ] _

** Me, 8:23am:  ** _ [Because we can postpone the whole Friday thing if you need, like, recovery time.] _

He didn’t expect a text back for a few hours at least. He rather hoped he wouldn’t get a text back for a few hours, anyway.  Nightwing deserved  to sleep in, particularly if he’d been stabbed on the job.

** N, 8:26am: ** _ [ _ _ no  _ _ I’ _ _ m ok  _ _ i _ _ promise] _

Or  Nightwing was already up and around, about five hours after his post-patrol selfie. Somehow, Wally wasn’t very surprised. He was getting a picture of a sleep-deprived, caffeine-dependent family of Bats , albeit slowly.

** N, 8:27am:  ** _ [it barely grazed me] _

** N, 8:2 ** ** 9 ** ** am:  ** _ [b just freaked out because it  _ _ nicked my neck, _ _ near  _ _ the  _ _ carotid _ _ artery] _

** N, 8:29am:  ** _ [it won’t even scar _ _ probably] _

Wally felt a slow chill run up his spine and  prickle across his scalp. That was a close one of  whole different proportions, a centimeter more and Wally wouldn’t have a date with  Nightwing on Friday. Or ever. The chill dropped sickly into Wally’s stomach.

** Me, 8:33am:  ** _ [I… have no idea how to respond to that.] _

** N, 8:34am: ** _ [ugh why is everyone so concerned] _

** N, 8:35am:  ** _ [ _ _ i _ _ know it was close, but nothing happened!  _ _ i'm _ _ fine! _ _ we have close ones all the time and this was no different.] _

** N, 8:38am: ** _ [sorry, that was rude _ _ ] _

** Me, 8:39am:  ** _ [No, I get it. You probably feel smothered, I know I do when something happens and my uncle freaks out. _ _ ] _

** N, 8:40am:  ** _ [it was still rude  _ _ of  _ _ mertyuiop _ _ ] _

** Me, 840am:  ** _ [?] _

** Me, 8:40am:  ** _ [You good, there?] _

** N, 8:43am:  ** _ [ _ _ Okay, liste _ _ n _ _ up, shit-for-brains _ _ , I’ve got like ten minutes before the  _ _ dickface _ _ figured out where Iran off with his phone. Fifteen if _ _ I’m lucky.] _

** Me, 8:44am:  ** _ [Okay…?] _

** N, 8:46am:  ** _ [I heard that the replacement already got to you. He’s destroyed all record of where you live, lucky for you he’s such a competitive little shit, otherwise  _ _ this family would visit all kinds of hell upon you. We’re fucked up like that.] _

** Me, 8:47am:  ** _ [I have no idea what’s going on, but I’m going to assume this is one of th _ _ e mysterious brothers _ _.] _

** N, 8:48am:  ** _ [ _ _ Ew _ _ , don’t associate me with them.] _

** Me, 8:48 ** ** am ** ** :  ** _ [Do I get a name to go with these threats? _ _ Or. There seems like there will shortly be threats, anyway.] _

** N, 8:49am:  ** _ [Oh, absolutely fucking not.] _

** N, 8:5 ** ** 1 ** ** am:  ** _ [Anyway, listen here. If anyone’s going to hurt  _ _ the golden child it’s  _ _ gonna _ _ be fucking me. If you hurt him in any way, I will take that as encroaching on my territory and I will kill you. _ _ ] _

** Me, 8:52am:  ** _ [Isn’t there some kind of no kill policy?] _

** N,  ** ** 8:5 ** ** 3 ** ** am:  ** _ [I don’t play well with “rules.” This will be your only warning, Zippy _ _. _ _ ] _

** N, 8:55am:  ** _ [ _ _ Trust me when I say you will absolutely regret hurting  _ _ him _ _. Hell, you should probably hope me and my disdain for the rules gets to you, first, if you do anything to hurt him. _ _ Because there’s a lot you can live through and the others aren’t like me, they don’t kill. So they won’t put you out of your misery.] _

** Me, 8:57am:  ** _ [Do you always text in novels? I’m kind of impressed.] _

** N, 8:59am:  ** _ [Seriously? That’s your response?] _

** Me, 9:01am:  ** _ [It’s been 18 minutes. :( ] _

** Me, 9:01am:  ** _ [I miss N. _ _ ] _

** N, 9:03am:  ** _ [You clearly have no idea what’s good for you _ _ , because what’s good for you is staying away from N. It would save everyone a hell of a lot of trouble.] _

** N ** ** , 9: ** ** 04am:  ** _ [Whatever.] _

** N, 9:05am:  ** _ [[ _ _ mp4 _ _ attached]] _

Wally opened the video file. The camera was on a figure at the opposite end of a long, unnecessarily opulent hallway. There was dark wainscotting along the walls, little alcoves with literal suits of armor in some and little tables with fancy vases in others, and a red carpet runner or whatever down the whole length of it.

“ Yo ,  d ick!”  the voice behind the camera called , deeper than  Nightwing's voice .

“ Little Wing!”  Nightwing called, clearly exasperated.

The camera jumped back as  Nightwing vaulted forward.  Nightwing's brother kept the focus on  Nightwing , even as he jumped back  again. He caught a handspring, a flip, a vault off one of the hallway walls, and a swing off the chandelier, then the video ended.

** N, 9:05am:  ** _ [Enjoy, dumbfuck.] _

** N, 9:07am:  ** _ [ _ _ i _ _ am so sorry  _ _ aboutmy _ _ brother omg] _

** N, 9:07am:  ** _ [hang on while  _ _ i _ _ read back] _

** Me, 9:08am:  ** _ [It’s fine, don’t worry about it.] _

** N, 9:11am:  ** _ [ _ _ jesus _ __ _ christ _ _ he’s intense today] _

** N, 9:11am:  ** _[i mean, he's always intense but w/e]_

** N, 9:12am:  ** _ [ _ _ i'm _ _ sorry again, he doesn’t even live here!] _

** Me, 9:13am:  ** _ [No, seriously, it’s fine. I thought it was endearing. In a weird way.] _

** N, 9:14am:  ** _ [ _ _ i _ _ can’t believe he didn’t  _ _ scafre _ _ you off.] _

** Me, 9:14am:  ** _ [Haha, no chance of that, don’t worry.] _

** N, 9:15am:  ** _ [wow,  _ _ i _ _ really struck gold with you, didn’t i?] _

Wally couldn’t fight back the smile, not even a little bit. He flushed warmly, but more in that pleased way than in that embarrassed way, and tilted his phone until the top edge of it touched his forehead.  Nightwing thought he struck gold with Wally, huh? Wow. Wally bit his lower lip and returned his phone to his line of sight.

** Me, 9:17am:  ** _ [Well, I  _ _ dunno _ _ about that, but I definitely lucked out, if you ask me.] _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jason's cameo isn't physical in this one, but I had a lot of fun writing the back and forth texting.
> 
> My fren actually paid me a lovely comment, saying they didn't usually like when people put texts in fic (fanfic or ficfic), but that they liked the way I wrote texting out. I feel. Appreciated. *pap paps own face*
> 
> Anyway! Favourite part? Did you like having more texting going on? Do you prefer more or less of that? (If you're not a big fan of the back-and-forth texting, though, don't worry, not every chapter is going to be like this one was. Promise.) Did you like Jason's cameo or are you gonna hang in there hoping for a physical cameo? Thoughts? Comments?? Ideas???
> 
> I just. I love talking with ya'll in the comments, lmao.
> 
> First readers, obviously, get Jason as a surprise since he won't be in the tags until later today/tonight or tomorrow.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wally can't sleep, Hal arrives home early, and fig preserves are Not Cool (according to Hal).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a Thing coming up. I expect I'll still be writing and stuff, but part of me is all "in case I don't" and that means *jazz hands* I decided to knock a whole chapter out instead of doing the smart thing and going to bed at a reasonable hour. XD
> 
> Reminder that "UMCK" is "University of Missouri: Central and Keystone" in the context of this fic. And others. I know it'll show up again, partly because it's already in a partly-finished fic (the one that I started writing as soon as I finished [Odd One](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29238171) in hopes of writing my initial idea ""correctly"" lol) (did I just embed a link to my own fic to try and entice people over to it? Maybe. Maybe I just really like embedding links. (It's actually the second one though lmao)).

Thursday night came along almost  sooner than Wally expected. Almost.

Obviously, there was no  way Wally was getting  any sleep. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t until basically the end of Friday, when he would be going on that date. It also didn't matter that, while he texted  Nightwing every day,  Nightwing still had yet to tell him the location of their whole… movie date night thing. What mattered was that he was excited and anxious and vibrating with excess energy.

That was, in part, why Hal found  Wally in the kitchen eating peanut butter and jelly toast sandwiches at almost three in the morning. Wally had been alternating between his munching and texting Dick, who was having a slow patrol and texting through his gauntlet ( on which he apparently had a clone of his cell  phone).

(He,  Nightwing , had to be using speech to text or something . Otherwise he definitely wasn't patrolling safely. Wally was too afraid to ask.)

(Wally was also pretty sure he was using speech-to-text, since there was less punctuation and more capitalization than  Nightwing usually used, making it look a bit more like Barry’s texting, if Barry had consumed caffeine just before texting.)

Wally glanced up when he heard the front door, vaguely confused, then lit up when Hal walked into view, small duffel (stolen from Barry, years back) in hand. “I thought you weren't getting in until lunchtime, tomorrow!” Wally abandoned his food and phone, notifications still going off behind him, to catch Hal in a tight hug.

Hal’s tired ambivalence evaporated. He grinned and returned the embrace, dropping his duffel to do so. “Hey, kid! What are you doing up?”

“Eating.”

“Yeah, no,” Hal laughed. “I see that. Why?”

Wally stepped back. “Couldn’t sleep.”

“No?” Hal wrapped an arm around Wally’s shoulders and steered him into the kitchen. On his way past, he nudged his duffel to toward the wall, next to the kitchen doorway and out of the way. The action could have been misconstrued as careless, but if there weren’t anything important in the bag, he would have bothered to move it. “Well, I’m starved. So, how ‘bout you tell me what’s keeping you up and I steal one of your ridiculous sandwiches.”

“PB and J’s better toasted.”

“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that, kid,” Hal released Wally to take over the seat opposite the one Wally was using. “Just tell me it’s not that awful apricot stuff, please.”

“That was one time.” Wally headed for the cupboards. On the table, his phone gave another notification. It was slowing down, but there was definitely going to be a slew of messages when he got back to his conversation with Nightwing.

“Or the mint jelly.”

“That was one time, too!”

“Or the fig preserves.”

“That...! Okay, that’s fair.”

Hal nodded. “I know it is. Figs are fucking gross, Wallace.”

“Iris buys it, not me,” Wally fetched a plate, then headed back to his seat. “I just eat it when there’s nothing easier in reach.”

“So, it is fig?” Hal made a face.

Wally snorted. “No.” He put one of the sandwiches, no longer quite as warm and toasty as it had been, sadly. “It’s strawberry. You don’t have any complaints about strawberry jam, do you? Joan made it.”

“Oh, well that’s different,” Hal accepted the plate.

“You didn’t answer my question, by the way.” Wally took a generous bite of his sandwich and, yeah, not toasty-warm anymore. Sad.

“No?” Hal paused, sandwich halfway to his mouth. “Which one? Wait. Oh yeah. Yeah, no, was slated to be back around noon. Finished up a bit sooner and decided I didn’t want to wait, though. You guys have been making me soft, I swear. Couldn’t stand the idea of waiting another eight hours before starting back.  Kilowog ways hi, by the way.”

“You missed us that much?” Wally covered his smile, mostly because he was still chewing and that would be gross. “God, you’re a sap.” He dropped his hand again, then took a moment to turn his phone over, so that the blinking notification light wouldn’t be able to taunt him.

“Hey, you’re not  gonna go ruining my reputation, are you?” Hal put on an offended look and lay a hand over his heart. “Got an image to keep up, kid. You can’t just go and mess that up for a guy.”

“Oh, please, you do that all by yourself.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Wally scoffed. He downed the rest of his sandwich and gave himself a moment to actually chew and swallow. “I bet,” he said, afterward. “I bet you have souvenirs in your bag. Little gifts for Iris and Barry and probably me.”

“You have no proof of that,” Hal said.

“You always bring things back.”

Hal scoffed. “Do I?”

“I still have the alien rock band hologram poster thingy,” Wally waved vaguely toward his room.

“Okay, so maybe I bring gifts back,” Hal grinned. “Is it your turn to answer questions, yet?”

“About what?”

Hal motioned around the kitchen and at the toast sandwiches. He raised an eyebrow for effect.

“Oh. Right.” Wally glanced at his phone as another notification came through.

“Yeah, ‘oh, right,’” Hal leaned his cheek onto his knuckles, elbow propped up on the table. “Got an exam coming up or something? I feel like I would have known about that before leaving. You’re usually really on top of your schedules.”

“Have to be,” Wally said. He picked his phone up and turned it over. “It’d be awful hard to balance UMCK and patrolling and STAR Labs and Titans if I didn’t make sure I had my scheduling down.” Even as he was unlocking his phone, another notification came through.

“So, not an exam,” Hal said.

“Nope,” Wally glanced up at Hal, smiling, then dropped his eyes back to the screen of his phone.

** Northwest, 2:33am:  ** _ [I just got a call to a burglary across town damn] _

** Northwest, 2:34am:  ** _ [Nope  _ _ never mind _ _ false alarm] _

** Northwest, 2:34am:  ** _ [I keep forgetting to punctuate have you ever tried including punctuation in your speech? It’s a pain in the ass] _

** Northwest, 2:35am:  ** _ [I remembered the? Question mark? Question mark shit don’t] _

** Northwest, 2:35am:  ** _ [I told it S E N D I guess] _

** Northwest, 2:39am:  ** _ [You’d think O would have some more intuitive coding on this program oh god I bet it tells her when I mention  _ _ her _ _ I’m going to die nice to know you Wally] _

** Northwest, 2:39:  ** _ [Fuck punctuation] _

** Northwest, 2:40:  ** _ [I mean quote fuck, punctuation unquote] _

** Northwest, 2:40:  ** _ [Oh my God I give up] _

** Northwest, 2:42am  ** _ [I just witnessed my baby brother literally rescue a cat from a tree not that I'm surprised he loves cats. Period period fuck I forgot to say,] _

** Northwest, 2:43am:  ** _ [I mean,] _

** Northwest, 2:43am:  ** _ [, comma, why is this so difficult] _

** Northwest, 2:44am  ** _ [Well that’s how my night is going I guess] _

** Northwest, 2:47am:  ** _ [Where’d you go] _

** Northwest: 2:47:  ** _ [?] _

Wally smiled, huffing a laugh through his nose, then tapped out a quick response.

** Me, 2:47am:  ** _ [My Uncle Hal came home.] _

** Me, 2:48am:  ** _ [Sorry, I didn’t mean to ghost you!] _

** Northwest, 2:48am:  ** _ [Hey  _ _ yeah _ _ no problem  _ _ say _ _ hi for me L M A O aw shit whatever] _

Yeah,  Nightwing was definitely using speech-to-text. Wally snorted again and set his phone back down on the table. He glanced back at Hal, who had his eyebrows raised in a Significant Look that Iris had helped him perfect. “What?” Wally asked.

“Who the hell could you even be texting at two...” Hal glanced at the stove’s digital clock. “Whoa. At  _ three  _ in the morning. New girlfriend?” He put his hand up before Wally could protest. “Wait, wait, wait. I heard myself. Let me rephrase: New girlfriend?  _ Boyfriend?” _

“Uncle Hal,” Wally covered his face, but he was laughing.

“What? I’m bi, too, I can manage this whole ‘teasing the bi nephew’ thing. Well, Barry’s nephew.”

Wally dropped his hands, but only so that Hal could see his eyeroll. “Yeah, I know you can. But uh.” He  fidgeted and glanced down at his last sandwich. Hal had barely eaten half of the one sandwich Wally had offered him.

“No shit! You did?”

“Did what?” Wally glanced at him, then back away again.

“You got a girlfriend!”

“Other one,” Wally rubbed the back of his neck.

“A boyfriend! Shit!” Hal clapped his hands together. He was getting way too loud for almost three in the morning.

“Maybe! I have a date. He says hi.”

“Oh, I see. Oh, wait! I  _ do _ see!” Hal nodded. And kept nodding. “That’s what’s keeping you up, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. Sorry, I’m gonna be missing movie night—”

“Pfft,” Hal waved him off. “Fuck, kid. You have a  _ date,  _ forget about movie night, that can wait a week or whatever.”

Wally smiled at Hal. His expression felt soft and there was a building, familial warmth building in his chest. “You know, Iris said you’d say something like that. I wish I could do both, but he’s...” Wally shrugged. “I don’t know. We’re both so busy, I didn’t know if reschedulign would even work.”

“So, civilian or hero?” Hal asked.

“What?”

“Or villain? I don’t judge.”

Wally snorted. “You do so fucking judge,” Wally said. His profanity always seemed to get worse around Hal, the way profanity worsened around kitchens, factories, and – like – sailors. Or whatever the usual cliches were for profane groups of people.

“I judge a little,” Hal conceded.

“Hero, though. Not a meta.” Wally leaned back in his chair with a huff.

“How’d you meet?”

“Aw, man, I knew you’d ask that.”

“Complicated?”

Wally laughed. “Sort of. Mostly embarrassing, though.”

“Did you trip?”

“No! I mean. Maybe. But he wouldn’t have been conscious to see it.”

“Weird start, but go on.”

Wally did go on. He outlined the story as best as he could, touching on the embarrassing moments he had and lingering on Barry’s reactions, because Wally knew that those would amuse Hal the most. He even pushed on into the next meeting with  Nightwing , up until and including when  Nightwing asked him out. It was a little past five in the morning after Wally finished his storytelling.

“So, you’re going out with  Spooky’s kid?” Hal gave an impressed nod. “Nice.”

“Not surprised he has kids?”

“Oh, hell no. I’m terrified of that! I’m just beyond the ability to process it right now, after the whole... ‘trip through space’ thing and all. I’m going to put it aside until tomorrow or something. Spooky with kids? Do you think he has baby picture albums? Pictures in his wallet? Drawings on the fridge? Jesus Christ.”

Wally laughed. “Well, they’re adopted, so I  dunno about the baby pictures and stuff, but yeah. Maybe I’ll ask N. Or something.”

“Oh, please do,” Hal laughed. “Well,” he stood. “I think I’m going to go crawl into bed. I’m losing the last threads of my coherence, all evidence to the contrary, and... what was I? Oh. And if I wanne freak Barry and Iris out, I better get moving, otherwise Iris will be up and getting ready to work when I invade their bedroom.”

Wally snorted. “You’re just going to crawl in bed with them? Like a little kid?”

“Yup, I deserve a snuggle after the trip I made,” Hal tossed Wally a lazy salute and started toward the stairs. “You should get some sleep, too, kiddo. Big date and all, right?”

“Yeah, I might try,” Wally sighed and smiled down at his phone.

Hal was quiet, but had stopped walking. He huffed out a warm laugh. “You’re gone,” he said.

“What?” Wally lifted his head.

“For him. You’re completely gone for him. I’ll keep my fingers crossed it goes well, huh? I  wanna meet this guy sometime, like, family dinner or something.”

“Iris is already thinking about possible weddings.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah, family dinner’s way more reasonable to think about. Though, technically, Barry and Iris both met him, already. A little.”

Hal nodded. “Yeah. Wish I could’ve, sounds like the whole thing was a riot.”

“I guess it was.” Wally yawned. “Okay, I guess that’s my cue to get to bed, huh? Goodnight, Uncle Hal.”

“Goodnight, kiddo.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Hal finally makes an appearance!
> 
> I like how it feels, writing Hal, but part of me feels a bit like I was writing Male V (Cyberpunk 2077) because of how often I was leaving off the main subject of sentences. Maybe not as much as I think I am? Idk. But god do I love Hal. I hope I'm doing my fav Green Lantern justice. Yes, I'm a basic bitch and Hal Jordan is and always will be my favourite GL, lmao. Like, I get angry when he's left out of things because I love him That Much. XD
> 
> Did I have anything else? Idk.
> 
> Disclaimer for Hal, in this chapter: I'm up late, he's up late, Wally's up late. We're all up late, so anything not to spec with his dialogue and choices? I'm blaming it on one or all of those.
> 
> Edit: I remembered the other thing I meant to say (why am I like this? XD). I shorten Nightwing to NW, usually. Idk if I've done it in any fic yet, but that's my go to. So... I had Wally name him Northwest in his phone as a nod to myself XD and how I refer to Nightwing as NW. XD

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! :)


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